Mbale District land board has been named in forgery of land leases and minutes of meetings to allocate land in the municipality.

Although payment of lease offers of Shs400,000 is done by the intending land developer at the District Land Board (DLB), the minutes for the lease offers, stamps, signatures and dates of the lease offers are all reportedly forged.

An August 22, 2002 lease offer seen by Saturday Monitor quotes a minute of the January 8, 1998 land board meeting, allowing Bishop Patrick Okabe to acquire and develop Plot 5 Bumboi Close in Mbale municipality. But the certificate of title for the same plot was given out on May 12, 2000.

The documents show that the land was titled in 2000 before it was leased out to the bishop on January 9, 2002.

Although the DLB chairperson, Mr Kitutu Nukamba, said the same land was given out to Budadiri West MP Nandala Mafabi in 1998 by the same board, the minutes of the award are missing in the file.

“I have done my part as chairman DLB but my work is being frustrated by other members. One time in the middle of a DLB meeting, I asked to go for a short call, one of the members followed me and locked me in the toilet and by the time I came out, they had already signed the documents for land leases without scrutinising them,” Mr Mukamba said. He said some board members forge minutes, photocopy them and insert them in the file to allow forgery of land leases and titles in the municipality.

The January 8, 1998 DLB minutes signed by the land board secretary, Ms Anna Nakayenze, on May 17, 2006 are not paged and one page has a different font from other minutes of the same meeting.

Other January 17, 2006 minutes bear different stamps, signatures and are of a different font compared to the original minutes. “These people know very well that in 1998 Mbale District, like other districts in Uganda was using a type writer, but they are not ashamed to use a computer for typing, setting font and forging minutes to give out land leases. It is a shame for us and we must clean ourselves,” Mr Mukamba said.

Ms Anna Nakayenze, the secretary to the land board could not be reached for a comment. But the district planner who also sits on the Board, Mr Emma Kigaya, said there was forgery at the DLB especially for the land leases dated 1998.